


Liquid Courage

by doctorkaitlyn



Series: tumblr fics & ficlets. [49]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Drunken Confessions, Human Scott McCall, M/M, Minor Allison Argent/Scott McCall, One-Sided Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski, One-Sided Relationship, Prompt Fic, Underage Drinking, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 08:25:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5659495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorkaitlyn/pseuds/doctorkaitlyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Stiles gets drunk for the first time, it suddenly becomes much harder for him to bite back the truth about his real feelings for his best friend.</p><p>(written for the prompt "Sciles + 98 (“I can’t watch you with someone else. It’s tearing me apart.")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liquid Courage

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt Anon asked for "Sciles + 98 (“I can’t watch you with someone else. It’s tearing me apart.”) Per usual, I tried to make this happy, but no such luck!

Stiles has never been drunk before. 

That doesn't mean alcohol is completely new to him; he and Scott started sneaking sips from his dad’s whiskey bottles when they were twelve, twisting their faces and spluttering as they both lied and said it tasted great. There’d been other times as well; glasses of champagne handed to him at weddings, flasks passed surreptitiously at school dances, the occasional glass of spiked eggnog at Christmas. But on none of those occasions had he felt more than a buzzing behind his eyes and a looseness in his limbs. Sometimes, it felt like he talked more than normal, but he’d never gotten to the point where he lost control or to where just walking a few steps seemed like an insurmountable obstacle. 

Until tonight. 

He wasn't even supposed to be within the hallowed walls of Lydia Martin’s sprawling house. He hadn’t been invited to the party; Scott had been the one to receive the invitation, because he'd just made co-captain of the lacrosse team, which suddenly elevated his social standing into the stratosphere. Stiles had had no illusions of tagging along; he liked Lydia, but hers was a crowd he’d never really wanted to find himself in. Being around her and Danny wasn’t worth having to hang around Jackson, Lydia’s boyfriend, and his musclehead friends. 

So he’d told Scott to have a good time, swallowed past the lump of bitterness in his throat, and settled down in front of his computer for yet another night of streaming documentaries or aimlessly flicking through Wikipedia entries.

He’s just clicked play on a video that looks promising when his phone rings. 

“Hey Stiles! Look outside!” 

If it was just Scott on his dirtbike, Stiles would have raced outside in a heartbeat. Instead, parked in his driveway is Allison's car. She's behind the wheel and Scott is leaning out the passenger window, waving with the hand that isn't holding his phone.

“C’mon! We’re going to miss all the fun!” Allison leans out her window and waves as well, a tiny flick of her fingers matched with a beaming smile. 

Stiles tries to protest. He tries to say that he has a paper he really has to work on, that he's tired and needs to get some shuteye. 

None of the excuses work. 

Which is how he finds himself in the backseat of Allison’s car, nearly deafened by the indie rock pouring from her speakers, staring out the window instead of watching her and Scott hold hands, answering everything Scott says with a yelled, one word answer. 

Which is, in turn, how he finds himself planted in a spot by Lydia's crystalline pool, continuing to be deafened by music, this time by the blaring electronica kind. A makeshift dance party has taken form near the shallow end and Scott and Allison are right in the middle of the throng. Her arms are loosely draped around his neck and every time Scott leans in to nuzzle at her throat, she throws her head back and laughs, loud and bright, almost musical in tone. 

Every time she laughs, Stiles drinks more punch. 

(The thing is, it’s not that he doesn’t like Allison. Quite the opposite, actually; there’d been a few weeks right after she’d first come to their school where he’d nursed a tiny crush on her. Eventually, that crush had gone the way most of his crushes did; it’d disappeared with time. 

But there are still two crushes that refuse to go away.

There's Lydia, but even that is starting to wane as they get older; Stiles no longer spends what feels like hours daydreaming of their future life together. He'd once come up with a ten-year plan that outlined how he planned on wooing her but as more and more time passes, he's started to care less about the plan. He's even forgotten some of the steps. 

So there's Lydia, and there's Scott. But calling his feelings for Scott a crush really doesn't do them justice. 

It’s not often that Stiles is truly honest with himself. But in this case, there’s no denying it. He’s in love with his best friend. Has been for years, before he even really knew what it meant to be in love with someone.) 

A girl that he has calculus with distracts him for a few moments; they complain about an upcoming assignment and taste each others drinks (hers is almost one hundred percent vodka and he has to try hard not to spit it out all over her). After, she cranes up onto her tiptoes and tells him that there’s an empty bedroom downstairs that they can steal, if they move fast. 

Stiles considers it. He takes another sip of his drink and lets his eyes absently scan the crowd. Somehow, even though there are more people gathered around the pool now, his eyes immediately find Scott. Him and Allison are pressed against a wall by the door, foreheads braced together, grins plastering both of their faces. Before Stiles can avert his eyes, Scott leans in and presses his lips against Allison’s. 

When the girl looks at him with a raised eyebrow, Stiles just mutters _maybe another time_ and drains his drink. 

His legs already feel rubbery and his head feels much lighter than normally, but that doesn't stop him from pushing through the crowd and grabbing more punch. 

&.

And now he is, without a doubt, completely drunk. 

He has no idea what time it is, or how long it’s been since he last glimpsed Scott through the crowd. On one hand, it feels like hours, maybe even days; on the other, the image of Scott kissing Allison is still imprinted behind his eyes every time he blinks, clear as day. 

He’s somehow found himself dragged into a game of spin the bottle that’s taking place in the living room. There’s about a dozen people playing and of that dozen, Stiles knows two of them by name. The others are only vaguely familiar, faces he might have glimpsed in the hallways at school or in the stands at lacrosse games.

Still, that hasn’t stopped him from making out with eight of them. 

He’s just about to check off number nine when someone crashes into his back, sending him sprawling right into the middle of the circle. 

“Stiles!” Scott’s voice is incredibly loud and right beside his ear. His arms are wrapped around Stiles’ chest and it’s all Stiles can do to suck in a single breath. 

“Scott, buddy, I’m busy,” he rasps, gesturing in the direction of the very attractive person he was about to kiss. “Gotta… gotta kiss them.” 

“Kiss them later,” Scott replies. Stiles can hear the frown in Scott’s voice and when he manages to wriggle around, sure enough, there it is. “C’mon, I’m bored.” 

“Where’d Allison go?” Stiles asks, slowly getting up. His feet feel like they’re a thousand miles away and he leans heavily on Scott as they exit the room. The whole house appears to be swaying slightly and Stiles makes a note to tell Lydia that the house's foundation might need fixing. 

“Somewhere with Lydia. She was crying.” 

“Allison was crying?” 

“No, _Lydia_ ,” Scott says, drawing her name out to be four syllables. “I think her and Jackson broke up. Maybe.” 

"Good," Stiles mutters. At that, Scott bursts out laughing and thumps his hand against Stiles' back, hard enough to send him sprawling into a door frame. Stiles barely feels the impact and by the time they make it back out to the pool, he's mostly forgotten that it happened. There’s a gate on the other side of the pool deck and after a few fumbling attempts, Scott manages to pop the latch and open it. 

(Not that Stiles can judge; while he waits for Scott to get it open, he stares down at his feet and tries to remember just how and when he lost one of his shoes.

Unsurprisingly, after what feels like five minutes of solid contemplation, he comes up with no answers.)

Beyond the gate, there’s a small strip of grass that backs right onto the forest. It’s fairly dark and off in the shadows, Stiles can hear something that’s almost certainly a couple hooking up underneath the trees. 

“Get a room!” he hollers in their general direction before he trips over a slight rise in the earth and falls to the ground. His stomach lurches alarmingly and the world spins slightly, so he closes his eyes and sticks his arms behind his head. Scott laughs and drops to the ground beside him, but instead of stretching out, he wriggles closer until his head is resting on Stiles’ stomach. 

“Scotty, what are you doing?” he mumbles. Scott mumbles something in return and when he shifts, his hair brushes the strip of skin that's been exposed by Stiles' shirt riding up. “Why don’t you go find Allison?” 

“Are you mad at me?” Scott asks. His voice is quiet and when Stiles cracks one eye open, all he can see is Scott peering up at him, mouth twisted into another frown. “I didn’t mean to leave you alone, I just got distracted. We were dancing.” 

“I saw. ‘M not mad at you,” Stiles slurs, frowning when his tongue won’t work the way he wants it to. “I promise.” 

“I’m sorry,” Scott mumbles, like he hasn’t heard anything at all. As Stiles watches, both of Scott's eyes close, but he gropes out until his hand lands on Stiles’ arm. “Just feel like we’re... drifting. I miss you.” 

Scott’s fingers seem to burn hot as embers through Stiles’ shirt, just as hot as the single tear that threatens to spill from Stiles' eye.

“I miss you too. Just…” He wants to say so much, but it’s all jumbled together in his head, all the thoughts racing to be the first one out of his mouth. It suddenly hits him that Scott needs to know. They’re not supposed to have any secrets between them; that was something they’d decided back when they spent recess in the sandbox.

“It’s just… I don’t know how much longer I can watch you with someone else,” he blurts, tripping over the sentence a few times. Scott doesn’t respond so Stiles forges ahead, opening his mouth with only a slight idea of what's going to come out next. 

“Some days, it feels like it’s tearing me apart.” He closes his eyes and waits; he expects Scott to loom over him, maybe punch him in the face or scream at him. He just hopes that Scott avoids his stomach; it’s rapidly churning now and when he swallows, he can taste punch in the back of his throat. 

After a few long minutes of silence, he opens his eyes. Scott hasn’t moved, not an inch. At first, Stiles thinks that maybe he’s still trying to process things. Stiles would understand that. It’d taken him _years_ to come to terms with it, so he doesn’t expect Scott to be able to get things straight in only a few minutes. 

But more time goes by and Scott still doesn’t move.

“Scotty?” Stiles asks. He gently pushes against Scott’s shoulder, but he still remains motionless. Stiles shakes him a little harder and after a moment, Scott smacks his lips and shifts slightly. 

And then, he starts to snore. 

Stiles lets his head drop back against the grass and squeezes his eyes shut. It’s only the knowledge that he might wake up Scott that keeps him from slamming his fists against the ground in sheer frustration. 

“It’s not fair,” he groans towards the sky. “Not fucking _fair_.” Someone nearby yells at him to shut up and he screams back _fuck off_ before sinking further into the soft grass. 

He wants to get up. He wants to find his shoe and run into the forest, run until he can't hear the party anymore. He has a theory that if he runs fast enough and far enough, maybe his feelings about Scott will just evaporate into the air like morning dew. 

But he's just so damn tired and searching for his shoe would require wading back into the party. It might even require talking to Allison and just thinking of that makes Stiles' stomach churn even more. So instead, he leaves his eyes closed and adjusts his arms under his head.

The last thing he does before falling asleep is move his arm so that Scott’s fingers fall from it.

He can't bring himself to move Scott's head.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, I can be found on [tumblr.](http://banshee-cheekbones.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
